More Tribune Stations Go Dark on Cablevison

WGN America and Fox affiliate WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut, two channels previously unaffected by Tribune’s dispute with Cablevision, have gone dark. With the addition of WGN America and WTIC, Cablevision has now lost a total of 6 Tribune stations.

According to Cablevision, 50,000 Cablevision customers’ sole source of Fox programming was WTIC. However, the majority of Connecticut customers still receive New York City’s Fox affliate, WNYW.

Since August 17, Cablevision customers in various parts of the country have been unable to watch WPIX in New York, WPHL in Philadelphia, KWGN in Denver, and WCCT in Connecticut. The former two stations are My Network affiliates, while the latter two are affiliates of the CW. In addition to the main channels, Cablevision customers in the New York City and Philadelphia areas lost Antenna TV.

It is unknown how much longer Cablevision subscribers will be without Tribune owned channels. Cablevision said in a press release, “After causing the blackout of WPIX on Cablevision a week ago, the Tribune Company has now pulled the plug on FOX CT in Hartford, even after Cablevision agreed to pay all the fees they demanded for this station. Tribune is illegally tying carriage of FOX CT to less-popular channels they also own, in an attempt to extract tens of millions in new fees from Cablevision customers. We call on Tribune to return FOX CT to our customers and work with us to reach a new agreement.”

Tribune says Cablevision’s claims that it pays to carry WTIC or has offered to pay for the rebroadcast of the station are not true. Tribune also said that their side of the negotiations has been “completely lawful, and fully complies with the FCC’s good-faith negotiation rules.”